Skype Social Media Accounts Hacked by Syrian Electronic Army

A major theme of 2013 is carrying over into the new year: Hacks are a regular reality of digital life.

The Syrian Electronic Army, a group that supports Syria’s president and has hacked a series of websites, appeared to have taken over Skype’s blog, Twitter account and Facebook page. Those accounts posted messages purporting to be from the SEA criticizing Microsoft, which owns Skype, for sharing user data with governments. (The Skype Facebook account has since been restored to normal.)

“Don’t use Microsoft emails (hotmail, outlook), They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments. More details soon.” read a message posted on Skype’s Twitter account, and signing off with the hashtag “SEA.” The post had more than 6,500 retweets as of 6:15 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday.

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